down the rabbit hole
by enparis
Summary: alternate universe. a recently re-opened case. a writer with writer's block. a story of a woman's murder just waiting to be unravelled. falling in love was just another complication.
1. prologue

**a/n; so forgive me. i'm not a long story fic writer kind of girl. but this is for my friend katie, who convinced me to write this and who got me into castle in the first place. all hail katie, yup. anyway, i thought i might as well give this thing a shot, so – prologue! it's quite short, i'll admit, but i'm hoping for my chapters to be a good deal longer. hope you enjoy!**

**disclaimer; not mine, never will be. unfortunately.**

The death lingers over him. It sits in his mind and clogs up his thoughts and makes writing almost impossible.

The death itself isn't the problem. Sure, he was killing off his main character, hero of his novels, but that was what he wanted. What he didn't want was the countless questions. The writer's block. The complete lack of ideas.

Richard Castle, unable to think of a story. It's horrible. Tragic really. Martha's delighted of course, leaping at any opportunity to stop his ego from swelling up even further. Alexis keeps trying to help, with her little 'Oh!'s and 'Maybe...'s, but both of them know that _he's_ the writer, not her. Sweet Alexis, as brainy as she is, could never get into the head of a murderer like he could.

And so he was at a loss. Nothing. A great big stinking heap of absoloutely nothing.

Surely... surely he could do something with a butler? Put a spin on in. Double murder; the butler and the socialite he worked for. Everybody thought the butler did it and comitted suicide from guilt, but the evidence was inconsistant. Then who was the murderer? Why would they want to kill them - drugs, an affair, secret identities that the murderer had discovered? Who was this murderer? What was their M.O, their history?

More than that, who would the hero be?

Half way through trying to figure out the who, whats, whens, wheres, whys and if it was a blunt object or a rifle, his phone trilled. Gina. Reminding him that he had half an hour to get his ass downtown for a book signing. Most likely he would be asked about his next book. No, most _definitely_. And somehow he didn't think "Everybody thinks it was the butler" was going to cut it.

Sighing, he picked up his jacket and scribbled a quick note to Alexis for when she returned home from school. By the time he was done signing his name over and over, he doubted he would be able to write anything for a few hours.

Which was just another good way of procrastinating on the butler story.

He left the building muttering to himself in a high pitched tone, imitating the voices and questions he so often heard.

_'Why are you killing Derrick? Huh? He's my favourite!' _

_'What's your next book? When's your next book? Can I come to a signing for that one, too?' _

_'Hey, Mr. Castle, will you sign my chest... please?'_

-

The death lingers over her. It sits in her mind and clogs up her thoughts and makes focusing on the case nearly impossible.

Everybody had been so delicate with her that morning. As if Kate Beckett were suddenly made of glass. As if one piece of new evidence - that her mother's murder was connected to a couple of other murders, suddenly made her fragile, damaged goods. No. Everything they had seen of her - every interrogation, every chase, every single piece of evidence she had worked to click together. And they thought she was suddenly breakable because of one case? No. She wouldn't let it define her and shape her like that. It was what made her strong, and she would not allow it to break down everything she had worked to build. No matter how difficult this got, she would not allow herself to break. She promised herself and her mother that she would solve it. Kate Beckett was not a woman to back down on a promise like that.

Endless cups of coffee. No leads. Papers and papers and phonecalls to Lanie and more coffee and a lead that went nowhere. It was just as stuck as it had been when the case was fresh.

The new evidence changed everything, but it was all still the same, just growing a little colder as the days passed.

Mid afternoon they get a call. Another murder, another body, another grieving family. And it's all up to the 12th Precint's homicide division to go in and give that family the closure they deserve. Sometimes she thinks it's ironic that she spends all her time solving cases and talking to families and giving them closure yet she can't solve the one case that really matters to her. She can't find that closure.

Other times, she realises that it's more like Alanis Morissette's idea of irony and that it isn't ironic at all. Just her life.

Her life that she continues on with; suspect after suspect, paper after paper.

"Go home," Montgomery told her eventually, late in the evening. He spoke softly but firmly, and although he hadn't said it, she could almost hear the "I am your Captain and this is an order" tagged onto the end. He of all people knew how invested she was in her mom's case.

She nodded silently, not wanting to argue.

On the way home she spotted a line, stretching out from a book store. Richard Castle. Oh, how she loved that man's books. If only this case was one of his stories. Something that slotted together with a perfect ending to fit.

As nice as that sounded, back in reality there was a case waiting. Before that, however, a long soak in the tub. She deserved it. Perhaps clearing her head would help her think straight and start piecing together the fragments of information, like she had been piecing her life back together all those years.

Back in reality, her mother's story was lacking its fairytale ending. 


	2. chapter one

**a/n; chapter one! i hope you enjoy. this is a little… eh, in some places, imo. but, alas! dedicated to katie (tombombadillo) who you should go stalk if you want quality fic. yup.**

**disclaimer; honey. no.**

* * *

><p>When you're a writer living in NYC, coffee is your lifeblood. When you're a writer, coffee is essential to your living. In fact, even if you just live in New York City and have never written a single word in your life and hate coffee with every fibre of your being, you are still never far from a coffee shop, the rich scent diffusing through the bustling city streets and giving them just that tiny bit more life.<p>

If you're a successful writer, then coffee is easy to get to with a snazzy, newly purchased machine ready to spit out mugs of the stuff. However, sometimes snazzy machines and swively chairs are just /tiring/. Of course, Rick Castle could have all the sleep he wanted - he wasn't physically tired. But he had been stuck in his study for what felt like a couple of years, having a staring contest with a blank page. Cursor blinking angrily at him.

He needed out. He needed a stupid long line to people watch in, he needed the beeping of horns and growling of traffic and the lights dimming down as the morning slowly yawned and stretched out across the city. Yesterday had been spent indoors. Today would be started with a trip to Starbucks.

* * *

><p>"Damn <em>thing<em>," groaned Kate Beckett, hitting the base of her palm against the side of the knackered coffee machine. Using combat training to try and fuel her caffeine addiction was probably a misuse of skills, but it was early and she was irritable. Sighing, she poked her head around the door to catch a glimpse of the murder board. Just as she had left it. The boys were following up a lead, ballistics was running up the bullets of a suspect. Nobody would miss her for five minutes, surely?

Besides, she would be able to close this case far quicker if she actually had energy.

* * *

><p>The coffee shop was filled with people Castle didn't recognize. What he got for strolling around the streets aimlessly and going into the sixth shop he found, instead of the first. Still, the walk had given him inspiration. …if the smell of pretzels and women in clicking heels and men talking loudly into their earpieces could be called inspiration. Most would call it 'living in a city'.<p>

While he waited, he watched.

A gangly boy, picking nervously at his shirt and squinting up at the board behind the counter. Most likely he wasn't fluent in the language of coffee. Maybe he had moved to the city recently and was… looking to buy coffee? No. No, buying coffee_for somebody_. A girl? A girl that he moved to the city for and is trying desperately to impress with a double soy latte.

The girl behind the counter - nobody ever looks at the people behind the counter, but Castle finds them fascinating. She was tired, with bags sitting under her eyes that her make up couldn't mask. She had taken a second job recently, he was guessing. The coffee shop was only a part time thing. Yet she was still smiling, treating all the customers fairly. Determined to overcome her tiredness. Whatever her ambitions were, she had her heart set and was working desperately to reach her goals.

Another woman with clicking heels walked in. She was tall; confident, determined, the same sort of qualities he saw in the young barista, but more mature and focused. For her, every story possible lept into Castle's head. An undercover CIA agent investigating something in the coffee shop. A model, looking for some caffeine so she didn't go crazy listening to all the other girls. Her phone buzzed, and he watched as she answered.

"Beckett," she stated. "Yuh huh. You sure? Okay. Thanks, Lanie."

With an exasperated sigh, Beckett peered around to see how long the line was, and checked her dad's watch. Dammit. Coffee was probably out of the question now that Lanie had found something. Pushing back her hair and puffing out air, she turned to leave.

"Hey! Uh—," Castle hesitated. Calling out her surname would be admitting he was eavesdropping. Thankfully, before he made himself out to look like a stalker, she swivelled, her hair flicking over her shoulders.

He stepped backwards and gestured to the space in front of him, right behind the person at the head of the queue. She faltered for a second, frowning. She was a cop; it was her job to be suspicious. However, he didn't look particularly threatening or sleazy. He looked familiar, if anything, but she had too much going on in her head to figure out if they had met before and asking 'Do I know you?' could be taken in fifty different ways, not many of them ending with her getting out of the shop quickly with minimal flirtage.

"Thanks," she settled for, after quickly listing off her order and adding on a couple of muffins for Lanie, Ryan and Espo. This case had them all going full steam.

"You're welcome," Castle replied, fixing the woman with his most charming smile. "I'd hate for you to miss out on your coffee just because you were in a rush."

"You were were watching me, huh?"

The detective in her shouldn't have let the corners of her mouth twitch upwards into a tiny smile. The guy had been watching and listening to her answer her call from five people in the line away. That should be all kinds of creepy. His face told another story. He had a goofball smile that he clearly thought would win him all the ladies, and his eyes hinted to her that he was much smarter than he appeared. For the moment, she was trusting him. But she knew where her gun was.

"Correction: you were talking loudly. And yes, I might have been _observing_. All in the name of people watching."

As her coffee and muffins were pushed across the counter towards her, she let out a soft chuckle. "In that case, I hope whatever story you made up for me was a good one."

Castle opened his mouth to say something, but she had already turned on her heel and left. All that was left of her was the imagined idea of a CIA agent or an exasperated model and a few blueberry muffin crumbs.

* * *

><p>By the afternoon, Beckett was exhausted. The previously unnoticed and seemingly innocent bruise on the vic's knee had been the key to the whole case. The brother in law. Done, but not yet dusted. She let out a heavy sigh, casting her eyes to the stack of files waiting patiently at the end of her desk.<p>

Her stomach was first to protest; instead of the usual cramp in her hand, she heard the low rumble of hunger. A lunch break was mostly definitely necessary. If not to sate her hunger, then to preserve her sanity.

For a dangerous moment, her mind toyed with the idea of returning to the coffee shop. The mystery storyteller from earlier had lingered in her mind in those moments when the case had not. It was half curiousity and the slightly childish feeling of liking somebody you had just set eyes on; the faint blush that rose to her cheeks and the slight smile that he had managed to lure out of her with little coaxing - something rare for her. The other half was the tugging at the edge of her mind, the familiarity of his - she hated to admit it, ruggedly handsome - face. Free from the distractins of freshly brewed coffee and low murmurs of nearby conversation, she closed her eyes and thought. Hard. Perhaps things would come easier to her now, later on, and more relaxed, perhaps—

Oh _god._

"Kate, you _idiot_," she muttered to herself, wanting to hit herself. Hitting herself wouldn't magically undo her earlier blunder though, and she knew that. If she couldn't undo, she could at least put right, she decided, swinging round and standing up, striding quickly to the elevator.

"Yo, Beckett! Anything new?" hollered Espo, from a few desks away. An almost smug smile tugged on her lips as the plan formed in her mind, she called back.

"Just going to grab lunch. And buy a book."

* * *

><p>The second signing in two days. When the text had come through, he was tempted to send back:<p>

_Sorry, the being Richard Castle has been abducted by our race. We will return his spleen if you stop the homosapien rituals of 'book signing'. It is offensive to our race. RSVP space somewhere._

Then he would bring out the ice cream, the snazzy new surround sound system he had bought himself (because it was _snazzy_ and _new_ and _how could he resist?_) and try out the 3D television that he was desperate to watch ridiculously bad movies on with Alexis at his side. Frankly, even in 2D the day sounded much more interesting than any stupid book signing.

"Dad," Alexis blurted out sharply, frowning.

"Huh!" He jolted, jerking back to life. "Don't take my spleen! I… mean— Alexis! Here to tell me all about how you want to help me worm my way out of this signing? You know, I'm torn between alien abduction and highly contagious rare strain of disease that could possibly start a pandemic and destroy the entire human race. Thoughts?"

Alexis laughed, her features softening. "I'm thinking—," she fixed him wither her best 'know-it-all' face (which was really quite unnerving) and reached across the counter for an apple. "That you need to face your duties and be respectful of your fans. C'mon, Dad. I love you, but it's only fair."

Sighing, he nodded once. "I knew raising you to be smart was a bad idea," he teased, pressing a kiss to her forehead."

"Horrible mistake," she chuckled, sinking her teeth into the apple. "Oh! And dad?" she called, as he was grabbing his coat and steeling himself up for another few hours of hell. He turned around, eyebrows raised expectantly. She gave him her cheekiest grin.

"You just infected me."

* * *

><p>Girl number three was the first.<p>

"So, you know, why kill him? I mean, he's_Derrick Storm!_"

It was as if nobody understood that Castle new Derrick Storm quite well. They weren't just facebook friends, or those people you say hi to in the street because you were introduced once at a party one time and it's probably pokute. They weren't girly best friends who slept over at each others houses and talked about boys. They were write and character. Derrick strode around inside his head and was painted to life by the brushes castle wielded; the pens he brandished and the fingers he frantically pounded against his keyboard. Derrick was his. His head, his character. And, after all this time, he was pretty sure he knew that Derrick Storm was Derrick Storm.

Girl twenty four actually said it, while twisting her hair around a long, overmanicured finger.

"So, like, is it just books you sign? Because signing my chest would be, uh, pretty cool."

He returned her flirty smile, but only because she had taken the time to line up and buy the book and wait and ask and it was just like the person you met that one time at a party - it was polite, wasn't it? So he smiled and he signed and he smiled some more while the picture containing the fake smile and the signed cleavage was taken.

Girl one hundred and six is different.

Girl one hundred and six has clicking shoes and long hair that flicks over her shoulder as she turns her head. She had a determined, headstrong look about her, and it seems like an insult to call her 'girl'. With the focused eyes and the long legs, she's clearly a woman. Mature and dedicated, with a hint of that silly, childish feeling of liking somebody you set eyes on once in a coffee shop that morning.

"Hi," she says. That's new as well.

"You can make it out to Kate. Unless you came up with another name for me this morning. If that's the case, feel free."


End file.
